Interior ministry orders police, Rangers to beef up security at schools

ISLAMABAD/MULTAN/BAHAWALPUR: The interior ministry on Wednesday ordered police and Rangers to beef up security at schools and other educational institutions across the country, a week after a brazen terrorist attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda left at least 21 dead, reported Geo News.

The move came shortly after an official statement announced that all the schools run by the army across the country would remain closed until January 31. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that all the schools run by the Bahria Foundation would also remain closed until the end of the month.

The statement, however, did not specify any reason behind the sudden closure of schools.The move comes a day after the Punjab government ordered to shut schools for five days, telling 22.5 million students to stay at home, not due to security fears but because of extreme weather. The provincial government insisted that the schools were closed due to cold weather and not because of security fears.

Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood told media on Tuesday that a large number of children were catching flu and pneumonia as temperatures fell to as low as four degree Celsius in the provincial capital, while a severe shortage of gas left schools complicated the issue.

“Two days ago, parents complained about harshness of weather and diseases to children,” he told Reuters.“The meteorological office, too, told the government that the wave of extreme cold would continue for another three to four days. We took all stakeholders in confidence and made the decision to announce holidays.”

The minister denied that the province’s more than 100,000 government and private schools were shut because of threats, despite recent warnings that militants were planning to attack educational institutions.

On the other hand, the Punjab government sealed several educational institutions over lacking proper security arrangements. Among them was Sargodha Medical College has been sealed after inspection of security team, while the district administration issued show-cause notices to seven private schools in Sialkot over poor security arrangements.

Police also sealed the Islamia University Bahawalpur’s Khawaja Fareed Campus for not adopting proper security arrangements. A police team led by DSP City Shafqat Ata sealed the campus amid the resentment expressed by Faculty of Pharmacy and Alternative Medicines Dean Prof Dr Mehmood Ahmad and others.

Talking to media, the DSP said the IUB administration had been asked to adopt proper security measures but it failed to do so. Similarly, the students told media that they were also scared of inadequate security at the campus.

The DSP City also sealed Government Postgraduate College, One Unit Chowk, and Government College of Technology for Women for the same reasons.And in Multan, the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) was closed for two days aimed high security alert, the varsity officials said.

All the hostels and residences had been vacated and security agencies sealed the varsity while checking the premises, sources said.The BZU spokesman, Prof Dr Ghulam Shabbir, said that the university had been closed for two days with all the classes scheduled for Saturday and Sunday cancelled.

Earlier, the Balochistan government had announced that a special force would be formed to protect educational institutions, while the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa decided to issue free weapons licences to the teachers of state-run institutions.